What is a Healthy Weight and Healthy Diet?

There is a lot of conflicting information out there about what is a healthy weight and diet. It seems to change from month to month according to the "last study." Here is a woman's response to this dilemma from a comment on another blog which is no longer active. I think you all will enjoy!

There is much confusing information out there, no doubt. I used to be confused and not sure who to believe and what to follow. Not so much anymore. I’ve learned to listen to my body, and not all the noise and information out there. I follow a few simple rules and discard the rest: eat real, traditional foods as prepared and consumed by our ancestors, eat a lot of healthy fats {animal foods are key} from healthy sources, avoid sugar and anything processed. Get lots of sun, go barefoot, go to bed earlier {still working on that one}, reduce stress, avoid as much as possible chemicals and toxins in my home and work environments, and spend more time outside, get exercise when I feel like it, and laughing and having fun. I don’t worry about the rest.

Being healthy, by the way, is the main thing to focus on. Too many people focus on losing weight. But losing weight should be a side-effect of getting healthy. When you get healthy from eliminating chemicals, toxins, processed foods, etc. and detoxing, you will naturally lose the weight and arrive at what’s healthy for your own body, and that’s different for different folks.

I don’t worry about eating too much fat. I eat until I am full. I don’t worry about exercising myself to death to “keep in shape.” I haven’t had a weight problem ever in my life, but I have had trouble gaining weight, so when I started concentrating on eating real, whole foods as nature intended, I started to gain weight appropriately and now am at the most normal weight I’ve ever been in my life. These myths mouthed over and over again by medical experts are just nonsense anyway, and I know it’s nonsense because my whole life {over 4 decades} I’ve observed people doing the what they are told by mainstream health authorities and not get well and not lose weight.

 So, I have stopped consulting experts and just listen to my own intuition and common sense knowledge. If you are constantly changing what you do because someone told you to do it but not thinking about why you are doing it or waiting to observe whether it works, then I can see why there is confusion. Stop listening to experts and do your own research. Ultimately, you have to do what works for you.

If you don’t have digestive issues, you are most fortunate. Most people in the modern world do either from diet or poor lifestyle choices or both. These don’t always appear as what you would think of as digestive issues. Sometimes they are masked in some other way. If you have chronic health issues, no matter who you are, you definitely have some digestive issues as all health begins in the gut. Holistic medicine recognizes that everything is connected – nothing is compartmentalized. If you aren’t digesting your food properly, the eventual result is chronic health problems. I would have never connected my health issues to digestive problems, as my most noticeable symptoms weren’t really digestive-related, or so I thought. Something to think about.

For everything created by God is good, 
and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude.
1 Timothy 4:4

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